Brand New Eyes
by Duchess Whitehearth
Summary: When Morgan finds out she's adopted she sets off to Virginia to find her birth-mother, but things get complicated when she finds Elena Gilbert first; a girl who looks exactly like her.
1. Don't Look

Summary: When Morgan finds out she's adopted she sets off to Virginia to find her birth-mother, but things get complicated when she finds Elena Gilbert first; a girl who looks exactly like her.

So, I can practically hear the cogs turning in your head, so I'm going to stop right now and tell you all that Morgan does not end up with Damon or Stefan. However, somebody does end up with one of the brothers.

Nina Dobrev as Morgan Taylor

Nikki Reed as Rachel Taylor

* * *

 **MORGAN**

 **DON'T LOOK**

* * *

"Morgan," I heard a tired voice from the doorway call. I knew instantly that it was my sister, Rachel. "What are you still doing up? You have school in the morning."

"I know." I said as I continued to type. "I'm trying to find my birth-mom, but I can't find anything about her." I picked up my CANADA mug and took a gulp of the coffee inside before putting it down and turning to the doorway. "Are you sure you can't remember anything else about her?"

It had been two weeks since my sat sat me down one morning and told me some heart stopping, mind blowing, Earth shattering information. It had been exactly two weeks since she informed me that I was not our parents biological daughter.

It had been two weeks since I was told that I was adopted.

It took me about two days to get over the initial shock of it. I mean, it wasn't that I was mad about it or anything. Rachel had sat me down and told me because she had promised our mother that she would tell me once I was old enough to understand and I loved them all for that. I loved Rachel for telling me and not making it some dirty little secret, but, naturally, I wanted to know everything I could about my birth-mother, but no one knew much about her.

Rachel sighed and went to sit down at the foot of my bed. I was sitting at my desk in front of my window. "I don't know much." She reminded me once again. "I never met her, neither did mom or dad."

"Just..." I shook my head. "Just tell me everything that happened. Start to finish, leave nothing out."

Rachel sighed again as crossed one of her slender legs over the other before recovering it with her robe. "Well," She started. "It was seventeen years ago when I was four. Mom and dad had been trying to have a baby since I was one, but they just..couldn't, so they started looking at other options, but there weren't many." She said. "If they decided to adopt, it'd probably take years for them just to get on any sort of list and back then surrogacy wasn't a common thing. There were way to many medical and legal unknowns for them.

"I remember when mom got upset." She sighed and tucked her dark brown hair behind her left ear. "One night I heard her crying and I went to see what was wrong. They were in the living room and dad was just hugging her and telling her that everything would be okay. Then she said; 'It'll take a miracle.'."

"Then what happened?" Rachel smiled at me.

"The doorbell rang." She continued. "Mom went to the door and came back with you."

"I was a doorstep baby?" I whined and she chuckled at my complaint.

"You were so tiny." She said quietly. "And it was thundering and there was lightning everywhere, but you didn't cry once. I'm pretty sure you were smiling actually." Mom had never told me the story of my first storm. I kind of figured that I was like most babies and cried the entire time and that I just grew to love them. "After a couple of weeks when the police turned up no one in their search for your mom, you stopped being Morgan Doe and became Morgan Taylor."

I sat up at that. "My name was already Morgan?" I asked and she nodded. "I thought you said mom and dad never met my birth-mom?"

"They didn't." She confirmed. "But in the note she left, she asked that you be named Morgan, after her mother."

"What note?" I asked and she furrowed her eyebrows.

"Why are you getting all worked up now?" She asked. "I already told you about the note...didn't I?" I shook my head, shocked that she could be so forgetful.

"Obviously not, you egghead!" I shouted before leaving my room. I heard her following after me.

"There is no need for name calling." She said as we went down the stairs and I immediately went to our fathers study. He had died years ago, but neither Rachel or I had the heart to move any of his things.

For the first time since dad died, I didn't feel the immediate need to cry when I entered the study and I smelled the familiar scent of peppermint and cigars. I had hated the smell when he was alive, but now that he was gone, I couldn't get enough of it.

"What are you doing?" Rachel asked as I began searching through his desk drawers.

"Looking for the note." I said, shoving a drawer close and opening another. "Mom was a pig when it came to organization," I remembered as I continued searching. "That's why dad kept all the important stuff; birth certificates, social security cards, bank statements. There is no way in hell he'd ever let mom lose something so important."

"You mean something important like this?" I straightened up and turned around to see Rachel holding a yellowing piece of paper. "See," She began as I took the note from her and carefully unfolded it. "This is why you need a big sister; so she can tell you where dad kept all his secret stuff." But I paid her no mind as I read the words on the note.

" _Kind strangers,_ " I read. " _This is my daughter. I haven't named her yet because I knew that if I did, I'd want to keep her, but I can't. I've gone so far and done so much that there is no possible way that I can stop now. I do, however, have a suggestion for a name; Morgan_." But there she had started a new paragraph, meaning I could see the few words she had written and tried to erase.

 _'That was my mother's name.'_

"Did you see this?" I asked pointing to it. Rachel didn't see what I was pointing at, but she had already nodded.

"Mom saw it too." She told me. "She tried looking for a woman named Morgan, but Georgia is a big city and that's a common name."

Sighing in disappointment, I continued. " _She's only a few days old, her birthday is June 22, 1992. I have only one request; please do not tell her about me. Don't tell her that she was adopted because I don't want her to look for me..._." I trailed off. Why? If she asked my mom and dad not to tell me, why had they?

"Are you okay?" Rachel asked and I nodded before continuing.

" _I re-_ " My voice cracked, but I quickly cleared my throat. " _I refuse to be a teenage mother and I don't want her to have any unrealistic expectations about what our reunion would be like. I want nothing more than to meet her, love her and hold her, but I can't to be a mother to her._ "

Rachel put her hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay?" I nodded.

"Yeah." I said quietly quietly as I looked down at the note so she wouldn't see the tears in my eyes. "Nothing like rejection to make you feel loved." I blinked away my tears, but one of them fell right onto the old, yellowing paper. "Crap!" I quickly turned and put the paper on the desk and tried to dab away the moisture before it damaged the paper.

I know what you're thinking; _'Idiot. The paper is gonna rip if you rub it.'_ Luckily for me, it didn't, but I also found something else.

With the face only inches away from the paper, I was able to see another word that she had tried to erase. My tear had fallen on it, so it was hard to read, but I saw some of the letters and it didn't take a genius to figure the rest out.

" _Isabel._ " I read quietly.

"What?" Rachel's voice asked from behind me and I quickly turned around with the note.

"Her name is Isabel." I said holding out the paper and she took it. "She wrote her name and then tried to erase it. I almost missed it."

Holding the paper right in front of her face, Rachel's eyes shot up. "I can't believe you caught that."

"Neither can I." I laughed before snatching up the paper and rushing out of my fathers office. Rachel followed me out.

"Where are you going?" She asked as I rushed up the stairs.

"To get my laptop!" I grinned as I stopped on the landing and grinned at my sister who stood in the middle of the foyer. "I am going to look up every single Isabel with a mother named Morgan in a two state radius."

I started back up the stairs, but Rachel's voice called after me. "Do you know how many people that is?" She asked.

"Probably a lot!" I called back.

* * *

It was a lot. Fifty eight mother and daughter duos named Morgan and Isabel and I went through all of them.

Unfortunately, I found nothing.

I looked in every single city in a two state radius of Atlanta like I said, but came up with nothing. I wasn't a hacker or anything, so I couldn't look into any of the Isabel's records to see if they had ever been admitted to the maternity ward.

I decided to do logical thing and weed out the Isabel's who couldn't be my mother; Anyone who was Asian, African American or anything else that was too ethnic for my facial features. I spent fifty bucks on one of those genealogy test to find out my ethnicity and two weeks later I found out I was Bulgarian, Hungarian, Nordic and Russian, which didn't help me because I had no idea what ethnicity Isabel was.

For a week I was disappointed and didn't even want to try again, but convinced me to keep looking.

I didn't get anywhere until one Friday when I was at school.

I was in Algebra ll when I was reading a problem in my math book about some kid named Fernando who wanted to get his girlfriend's mom some flowers before he went to meet her, but he didn't know if it was possible to drive at the speed limit to get the flowers and still make it to his girlfriend's mother's house; that was my job. The thing that caught my eyes, however, wasn't Fernando's inability to realize that being late by a few minutes wouldn't kill him. It was his girlfriend's name.

Her name was Isabelle.

It suddenly came to me that there was a chance I was spelling my birth-mom's name wrong. My tear had warped the already faded word so I didn't know what the original spelling was.

Not even waiting for class to be over, I packed up my things and ran out of class and the school (something Rachel hadn't been too happy about when my principal called her) and went home to get to my computer.

I knew that my birth-mom's name had five letters and according to five different baby name sites, there were only three ways to spell her name. The first had been the way I was already spelling it, the second had been Isabelle.

The last had been Isobel.

Apparently, not many people knew about that way of spelling it which was good for me. There wouldn't be too many people going around and naming their daughters Isobel.

In a two state radius, there were eight women named Isobel; three of them were still teenagers, one was fifty-five and in prison, meaning she couldn't have been a teenager when she had me, one was Asian, two were under the age of eleven which left me with one.

Isobel Flemming.

She met every requirement of being my mother; she was Caucasian, she had been sixteen when I was born and she had a mother named Morgan.

"It's her, Rachel!" I said showing my sister my findings. "I have to go find her."

"You read her note." She crossed her arms. "She doesn't want to see you."

"No," I corrected. "She didn't think she could raise me and didn't want to be a disappointment in my eyes. There's a difference." I nodded.

Sighing, because she knew she couldn't talk me out of finding Isobel, Rachel sat down next to me on my bed. "Okay, but how are you going to find her?" She asked. "She probably doesn't even live in the same town anymore."

"I already covered that." I said and opened my laptop which had a few tabs open. "I found Isobel on a website for Duke in North Carolina. She was listed as one of their researchers. Then I found this-" I said clicking on one of the other tabs which showed a newspaper clipping. "It's a wedding announcement for Isobel. She got married to some guy named Alaric Saltzman."

Rachel grimaced. "That's gotta be a complicated name to live with." I nodded in agreement.

"But it's great for us." I said. "I Googled him and found him in a town near the one Isobel was born in." I clicked over to a new tab which showed a website for said town. "It's called Mystic Falls- yeah, I know." I said at her face. "Anyway, they have a ridiculous amount of parties and social events every month. Alaric was sold of to the highest bidder in some bachelor auction thing."

"Yeah, but bachelor means they're not married anymore." Rachel pointed out.

"That doesn't mean she doesn't still live in town." I informed her and she sighed.

"Fine." She conceded. "But what are you gonna do? Go all the way to Mystic Falls and find some guy named Alaric and ask him for his ex-wife's address because you're the daughter she gave up at birth and you want to meet her?"

I snapped and pointed a finger at her. "I was just gonna send him an e-mail, but that is a much better idea."

* * *

Although Rachel was my older sister and my legal guardian, she had about as much control over me as I did her, which was why she joined me on my drive to Mystic Falls; because she knew I would go without her.

We both packed a bag and got our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Olsen, to watch our house for the next week before we left. Rachel knew it would take a few days, even weeks, to find Isobel, so she pulled me out of school for the next two weeks.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" She asked while we were sitting in the car. We hadn't left the garage before she asked. "Isobel might not be who you hope she is."

"She's a good person." I said. "She wanted to keep me, but she didn't because she knew that she wasn't what was best for me. She's a good person because she tried to give me my best chance."

Rachel stared at me as if she were looking for an doubt in my eyes or as if she were trying to find a way to assure me otherwise. "Okay." She said finally before looking back to the driveway and turning on the car.


	2. Eyes

**RACHEL**

 **EYES**

* * *

Mystic Falls was only a few hours away in Virginia, so we got there by nightfall. I figured it was best if we checked into a motel for the night so, for once in her life, Morgan didn't argue with me.

After ordering a pizza, Morgan went to bed and I left the room. I knew at the moment she wanted nothing more than to find her birth mother, but Morgan was still my little sister, blood relation or not, and I'd sooner die before I let someone hurt her. At the moment, I had my own agenda for finding Isobel and I needed to find her before Morgan did.

I didn't want to hurt her or threaten her or anything. I just wanted to make sure she wouldn't hurt Morgan; emotionally or physically.

After she finally fell asleep, I took the photo of Isobel from her bag and grabbed my purse before leaving the room. I made sure to lock up the room before getting in my car. I had seen a place called Mystic Grill when we were driving through town and I knew it was the sort of place where everyone in town would hang out. That was my best chance at finding Isobel, or her husband, before Morgan.

"Hey, excuse me." I said thumping the wooden bar top with my hand. The bartender didn't stop what he was doing when he looked to me. "Hi."

"What can I get you?"

"How about some info?" I asked straightening up from where was leaning over the bar. I did it because I needed to get the picture of Isobel from my bag, but also because I could tell that bartender boy was staring at my chest. "Do you know this woman?" I asked showing him the picture. "Her name's Isobel Flemming."

He took a long look at the photo before shaking his head. "No."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "She might be going as Isobel Saltzman."

"You're looking for Mr. Saltzman?" I turned around to see a guy, a blonde kid with blue eyes around Serena's age, coming towards me with a bin of dirty dishes.

"His wife, actually." I corrected. "Do you know him?"

Blondie nodded. "He's my History teacher."

"Do you know where he lives?" He shook his head, but I wasn't expecting him to know. He was just a student, after all. "Thanks anyway." He nodded before walking past me and I sighed as I looked down at Isobel's picture. At least now I knew where to look for her husband. The sooner we found Isobel, the sooner Morgan and I could go home.

I hung around the bar for a few more minutes before deciding to go back to the motel room.

I left the Grill and made my way to my car only to drop my car keys in a puddle once I got to the driver side door.

"Dammit." I cursed before bending down and picking them up. Straightening up, I tried to wipe the water off of my key before shoving it into the door. Unfortunately I never got a chance to unlock the door.

"Excuse me," A sultry voice said and I turned around only to find a guy standing right behind me. He was attractive; messy black hair and blue eyes with a smug aura around him, but his hotness didn't change the fact that I ended up jumping back, hitting my back on the car, because I wasn't expecting him to be so close.

"Holy crap!" I grabbed my chest, hoping to hell that my heart would stop beating so fast and so hard. "Oh, my God. You scared me."

He smirked at me. "My apologies." He said. "I was just wondering..." He stepped closer to me and I tried to step back only for the pressure of my door window to remind me that I was as far back as I could go. "Why are you looking for Isobel?" He asked staring right into my eye.

"I'm gonna give you five seconds to get the hell away from me." I said quietly, hoping that he would look down and notice my hand digging into my purse for my pepper spray. He, for some reason, looked surprised for a moment before putting his smirk back onto his face.

"Well, I can see that isn't going to work." He said, but I saw his eyes travel down to my hand just as I pulled out my pepper spray and shot his right in the eyes. He stumbled back a bit and I quickly ran past him, only for him to appear right in front of me a second later. His eyes were an irritated red from the pepper spray, but I could see it was disappearing fast.

"What the-" But he swung his arm and everything went dark as pain exploded on the side of my face.

* * *

"You're insane!" Was the first thing I heard when I came to, but I couldn't see anything. I tried to lift my arms only to find they were tied down behind me. A bit of wiggling told me that I was in a chair and my legs had also been tied to the legs. What the hell was going on?

"I couldn't compel her in the middle of the parking lot!" A slightly recognizable voice said back loudly and it made my throbbing head hurt. "I didn't have time to rip off all her jewelry! She was gonna leave, so it was either bring her here and figure out why she was looking for Isobel or let her go."

"You should've let her go." I heard the first voice say. I blinked a couple of times to make my eyes stay open, but then I realized that they were open. The darkness didn't come from the cover of my eyelids, but the bag that had been put over my head.

"Oh, that's a brilliant idea, Stefan." The second voice said mockingly. "I wonder why I didn't think of that- oh, I know!" I heard someone snap their fingers. "Because I'm actually trying to keep Elena alive!"

"Sorry to interrupt your little love spat," I said and everyone got quiet. "But can someone get this bag off of my head?"

"Do not take the bag off." The second voice said. Asshole.

Thankfully, no one listened to me and the bag was pulled off of me, pulling my hair up only to let it fall into my face. "Thank you." I said, whipping my head a bit to get my hair out of my face. I could only see two people in the room; one, the guy who hit me in the parking lot, the second looked to be a teenager with coppery brown hair and green eyes. He, like blue eyes, was muscular, but not as intimidating. "Now can someone untie me so I can get my phone and call the cops?" Green eyes looked at blue eyes and I sighed. "Long shot, but I had to try."

"Why were you asking around about Isobel?" Green eyes asked, but I wasn't about to tell him truth. If I did, I'd have to tell him about Morgan and there was no way I was going to send a kidnapper her way. Sure, he hadn't technically kidnapped me, but he was an accessory.

"None of your damn business." Blue eyes stepped forward, probably to hit me again, but Green eyes put a hand on his chest to stop him.

"We didn't bring you here to hurt you." He said. "Just tell us why and we'll let you go."

Blue eyes scoffed and crossed his arms. "No, we won't."

"Untie me and I'll tell you."

"That's not happening either." Guess who said that.

"Damon." Green eyes warned and I raised an eyebrow. Damon? Suited his smug bad boy aura. Green eyes turned to me. "Please, don't be difficult." I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes, but sighed. I'd tell him a lie if it meant he'd let me go.

"She's a friend of mine." I lied easily. "We went to college together and now I'm just trying to reconnect with her."

Blue eyes- Damon crossed his arms. "You went to college with Isobel?" I nodded. "What college was that?" Was he really testing me?

"Duke." I answered. "She was studying folklore and parapsychology. I was a finance major." I was now very thankful that I had read that packet of info Morgan had made about Isobel.

Damon narrowed his eyes at me. "How old is she?" He asked and my heart sped up when I realized I didn't know the answer.

"Thirty-three." I said, but I was guessing. My mother had said that she figured Morgan's birth-mom was sixteen when Morgan had been left on our doorstep. Morgan was seventeen now.

"You're guessing." Damon said and my heart sped up again. How did he know that?

"No, I'm not."

"Then why does your heart sound like you just ran a mile?" He asked staring me right in the eye, but I didn't look away. "Tell us why you're really here."

"I already told you." I spat out and Damon sighed before turning to Green eyes.

"I already took all her jewelry off of her, so it's compulsion time." He said rubbing his hands together with a slightly scary smile. I looked down at my chest to see that my grandmothers locket was no longer in it's usual place. I ran my thumbs over my other fingers, but couldn't feel any of my rings.

"Damon, we don't need to-" Green eyes began, but Damon gave him a look.

"Pipe down, Saint Stefan." He said before walking in front of me and lowered himself down to my level until we were eye to eye. " _What's your name?_ "

I planned on giving him a fake one like DJ Tanner or Brittney Spears, but that didn't happen. "Rachel Taylor."

" _What are you doing here in Mystic Falls?_ "

"I came to find Isobel."

" _Why are you looking for Isobel?_ " He prodded. " _Who is she to you?_ "

"She's my sister's birth mother." Why was I telling him all this? "She wants to meet her." Damon broke eye contact with me to look back at Gre- Stefan and I blinked a couple of times. What the hell...?

Stefan stepped forward. "Isobel is your sister's birth mother?" He asked sounding dubious and I nodded. No point denying it all now. "How old is she?"

"Thirty-three." Stefan sighed.

"Your sister." He specified. "How old is your sister?"

"She's seventeen." I answered. "Why do you want to know?"

Damon stood and moved to Stefan. "So, Isobel had two kids seventeen years ago?" He asked quietly, but I still heard him. My leg began to itch so I wiggled it, trying to scratch my itch with the leather of my boot. That's when I realized something; I was wearing boots. Dumb and Dumber had tied the rope around my boots, not my leg, allowing me to pull my feet out.

I sat them back on the floor just as Damon and Stefan finished talking. They didn't seem to notice that my feet were wrapped around the legs my chair and not inside my boots. "Tell us where she is." Damon ordered, but he hadn't looked me in the eye so I didn't feel the need to answer. Instead, I unwrapped my foot from the chair leg and kicked Damon right in his family jewels.

He let out a grunt of pain as he doubled over and I felt a bit victorious...that is, until he lifted his head and I got a look at his face.

It was the same as before, except now his eyes were darker and dark veins began to show under his skin. He grabbed me around the throat, cutting off my air as I began to choke.

"Damon, stop!" Stefan demanded, but I let out a disgusting sound when Damon squeezed harder on my throat. "Damon, I said stop!" Damon's hand was ripped away from me and I immediately started coughing as air rushed into my lungs. "What the hell?!" He demanded, but Damon just glared at me as I tried to catch my breath.

"I'll find her myself." He said to me before turning to Stefan. "Put her downstairs."

"Don't you touch my sister!" I yelled as Damon went out of sight. "Did you hear me?! You touch my sister and I will kill you, you asshole!"

"He's not gonna hurt her." Stefan assured me as he looked down at me and I scoffed.

"He just tried to kill me." I informed him as if he had missed it. "Not to mention the fact that he kidnapped me!" I screamed.

Stefan just stood there awkwardly. I guess he realized that the best thing to do was to stay quiet. Unlike Damon, I didn't thinking Stefan was as hands on, but I could tell that he wasn't easily manipulated.

"Why are you and Damon so interested in Morgan?" I asked after a few moments. "And what did he mean when he said Isobel had two kids?" Stefan simply crossed his arms, clearing not planning on answering. "Morgan hasn't done anything wrong." I continued. I didn't care if he wasn't listening; there was no way I was gonna let that psycho friend of his go after Morgan without pleading her case. "She's just a seventeen year old girl, so whatever problems you have with Isobel, don't blame Morgan for them. Just let me go and I promise, I'll pack her back into my car and drive as far away as I can. Just don't hurt her!"

Either he was getting tired to hearing my voice, or I had finally gotten to him because he slowly made his way to me before putting a hand on my shoulder and leaning down to look into my eyes. He just stared at me for a moment before he finally spoke. "I need you to listen to me." He began. "We're not gonna hurt your sister. I know that you have no reason to trust me or anything I'm saying, but it's the truth. My brother and I have someone we need to protect and, unfortunately, your sister is now apart of this."

"What is this?" I asked. "And what does it have to do with Morgan?" Stefan straightened up and began to walk away, not wanting to answer anymore of my questions so I tried appealing to better nature- if he had one. "You said that you had someone to protect!" I reminded him and he stopped, but kept his back to me. "So do I." He didn't seem to respond, so I continued. "When my parents died, I promised that I would protect her. Don't make me break that promise."

* * *

Stefan left a little while later, but not before moving me down to the basement where he, for some reason, had a cell. If you're wondering, he didn't untie me from the chair.

I had no idea how long I was down there, but I was sure it had been hours. It had been dark when Damon took me from the Mystic Grill parking lot, but it had been lighter when I woke up. I was able to remember that much because of the windows.

I had to have been down in the basement for, at least, a couple more hours before the door opened. I was honestly hoping that it was Stefan, but it wasn't. When the wooden door was fully open, I was treated to the sight of Damon and another man with light brown hair.

When Damon started towards me, I was absolutely sure that he was about to kill me by how angry he looked, but- to my surprise- he simply untied me.

"I don't understand." I admitted once he stepped back and I pulled my hands free. "Why did you untie me?" Why was I questioning it.

"Because, unfortunately," He frowned. "I need you help. My dear baby bro got himself kidnapped and you're gonna help me break him out."

I quirked an eyebrow as I stood. "And why the hell would I do that?" Damon smirked at me.

"Because they took your sister too."

"What?!" I demanded immediately. "Who took Morgan?! Why did they take Morgan?!"

"Because," I heard from the doorway and the brunette man stepped aside to reveal my sister- or, at least, a girl who looked very much like her. "They thought she was me."


	3. The Truth Hurts

**MORGAN**

* * *

 **THE TRUTH HURTS**

* * *

When I woke up, Rachel was nowhere to be found.

I didn't panic; I figured that she would go out and look around town, but I usually would've heard her leave. I wasn't exactly a deep sleeper.

After taking a shower and changing into some clean clothes, I left the motel, making sure to lock the door and pocket the key. Unfortunately for me, my hope that Rachel had left the car was squashed when I saw the Mustang missing. If I were back home I would've just taken my dad's old Honda since I didn't have my own car yet, but we had only brought one vehicle to Mystic Falls. Therefore, I was forced to walk.

There weren't many people out on the street since it was raining, but I was smart to think ahead and brought an umbrella- okay, it was Rachel's, but does it really matter?

The few people who were on the streets either milled around the small stores that lined the street, but most headed towards one specific building; The Mystic Grill.

"How original. Who the hell got to name this town anyway?" I asked myself as I crossed the street. "Of all the ridiculous names in the world, they had to go with Mystic, freaking, Falls. It's like someone said _'I want people to think that we're a drama ridden town run by teenagers with clueless parents.'_ " Putting my head down, I rushed into the building and let out of sigh of relief when warmness surrounded me.

The inside of the Mystic Grill looked like your usual hangout spot for people of all ages; booths, tables- even a pool table. Hopefully, one of the people hanging around could tell me something about my birth mother.

"Uh, hi." I greeted as I stepped up to the bar and the bartender gave me a friendly enough smile. "I'm new to town and I was hoping you could help me find someone." I told him. "Her name's Isobel. She might be going by the last name Flemming or Saltzman." I would've shown him the picture I printed out from the Duke website, but Rachel had taken it.

"Brown hair, brown eyes, looks a little like you?" He asked and I nodded. "No, sorry." He apologized. "But there was another girl in here asking about her." Digging into my bag, I pulled out my phone before going to the gallery and picking a photo of my sister.

"Is that her?" I asked, showing him the picture. He leaned forward a bit to get a better look before nodding.

"Yeah, I couldn't tell her anything, though." He shrugged. "She left a few minutes later." If Rachel had come to this ridiculously name bar last night, why wasn't she in the motel room when I woke up? And why didn't she text me if she had stayed out all night?

"Did she leave with anyone?"

The bartender shook his head. "Sorry." I gave him an appreciative smile and thanked him before he went to serve another customer.

I was now officially worried. My worry turned into a slight panic when I called Rachel over five times and she didn't answer once. Not even a day into our trip to find Isobel and everything was already going to crap.

After leaving the Grill and opening my umbrella, I began dialing Rachel's number again. Hopefully she hadn't been kidnapped by some small town hick cannibal and just spent the night with some guy and forgot to call.

I was halfway out of the parking lot when I heard the familiar beeping of Rachel's phone and I immediate looked around. It had to be close considering I was able to hear it over the sound of the rain. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my own phone and called Rachel's. Immediately, I heard the low familiar sound of Rachel's old-timey ringtone, but I couldn't tell from where. I quickly looked around before I noticed Rachel's black Mustang parked in the middle of the parking lot and I hesitantly made my way towards it; if she wasn't at the motel or the Grill, the only place she could be was in her car. I tried to reassure myself that she probably drank too much and didn't want to risk driving, but that didn't make me feel any better.

The ringing was now louder and I realized that it wasn't coming from inside the car but under. I immediately got down on my knees- not even caring if my jeans got wet- and looked underneath the car, only to find a ringing Blackberry with my face on it's screen. I tried to grab for it, but it was too far for my arm to reach. That didn't stop me from trying though.

I was still on my knees and focused on trying to grab the phone, so I didn't notice the footsteps getting closer and closer to me. Only when the man that they belonged to spoke did I realize that I wasn't alone.

"Katherine." Surprised at the sudden voice, I looked up from where I was kneeling only to be kicked in the face; knocking me out cold.

* * *

 **RACHEL**

* * *

"Alright, someone better start talking and they better do it now." I demanded as I paced the living room. "What do you mean they took my sister? Who are they? And why does she-" I gestured to the Morgan look-a-like as I stopped. "Look like Morgan." The girl, whose name I hadn't gotten yet, looked to the brunette man and then Damon before her eyes came back to me. I looked at them all expectantly. "Well?"

Damon was the first to speak up. "Look, none of that matters-"

"Screw that." I spat. "Don't stand there and talk to me like I some idiot you grabbed from the nut house. I saw your face change earlier when you almost strangled me to death," I reminded him accusingly. "And before that you did some Jedi mind trick to get all that information from me. Whatever the hell is going on isn't natural, so someone better start telling me what's going on or I'm walking out of here and finding Morgan myself." Once again, I got nothing; the man looked to Damon and the look-a-like looked down at her feet. I quirked an eyebrow at Damon who smirked at me again. "So, you're really not gonna tell me anything?"

Damon crossed his arms. "I'm calling your bluff, sweet cheeks."

I nodded. "Okay," I looked the look-a-like and brunette. "It was nice meeting you, but I've got to go." I told them before walking past Damon and towards where I was guessing was the front door.

"Damon!" I heard Morgan- or the look-a-like's voice say. "Are you just gonna let her go?"

"She's not gonna leave." He insisted. Shows what he knows.

"Yes, I am!" I called back. I was right in my assumption about the door. Putting a hand on the knob, I was just about to open the door, but a hand came out of nowhere and spun me around. I didn't know how I didn't hear Damon coming up behind me.

"Don't be ridiculous." He advised. "You don't even know where to start looking."

"I'm touched at your concern, but I'm sure I can figure it out." This time I was calling his bluff; I was leaving this house, it was just up to him whether or not he'd be joining me.

Turning around, I went to open the door again and Damon- once again- tried to stop me, but this time I was ready.

"You're being stu-" He began, putting a hand on my shoulder and I immediately grabbed it with my left hand before bending my right elbow and twisted around, forcing him to bend down in order to avoid hurting his shoulder. The I pressed down as hard as I could for only a few moment until he let out a yelp of pain, then I pushed him away- letting him fall to the ground with his dislocated shoulder. Once he was down, I left the house.

It was pouring outside, but I didn't have a jacket or an umbrella considering I had left both of those things at the motel since it hadn't been raining last night. Knowing that I wasn't going to get far in my heels, I ran towards the car that sat only twenty feet. Luckily the door was unlocked and I was fully intending on hot wiring it, until I realized that someone had left their keys in the ignition.  
"Idiots," I muttered before turning the key and stomping down on the gas. Unfortunately, at that moment, the man from earlier decided to come running out of the house- stopping right in my path. I pushed down on the brakes and only just avoided hitting him.

"Stop!" He yelled, but it wasn't easy to hear him over the rain. "We can help you!"

"Get out of my way before I run you over!"

"Damon knows where they're keeping Stefan and your sister!" He yelled back. "Without him, it'll take you hours- maybe even days to find her and I can tell you right now that they don't plan to keep her alive that long!" A million questions ran through my head; Who were they? Why did they kidnap Morgan? Why did they want to kill her?

Damon just so happened to to come storming out of the house at that moment with the look-a-like. He looked like he wanted to kill me and the girl was trying to stop him.

"Get out of the damn car or I swear to God that I'll throw it into the tree!"

"Damon!" The girl yelled before she turned her head to look at me. It wasn't Damon's strange threat or his anger that made me stop, it was her- the way she looked at me with such worry on her face- on Morgan's face. It was the way Morgan had looked when she was six and accidentally broke our fathers antique gramophone with her baseball, it was the same way she looked when she had broken one of the ridiculously expensive pieces of china that my mother had spent months restoring...

It was the same way Morgan looked before I told her that our parents had been found dead.

With a reluctant sigh, I turned off the car.

* * *

Despite the fact that Damon wanted to kill me, he didn't.

After introducing herself as Elena and promising me that Damon would help get Morgan back, she had gone upstairs for a few seconds before coming back down with a parka that she lent me- despite the fact that it wasn't hers. That's when Damon and the man, who introduced himself as Alaric, told me the plan.

Since Damon couldn't just go waltzing into the house that Morgan and his brother were being held, Alaric and I were supposed to go inside and ask to use the phone and when we were alone we were supposed to let Damon in through the back door and break out Stefan and Morgan; easy peasy.

Elena wasn't happy to hear that she would have to stay in the car, but it was a deal breaker when it came to all of us. I barely knew the girl, but- if my suspicions where correct (and I was a hundred percent sure they were)- then she was just another seventeen year old girl. The last thing any of us needed was for whoever had Morgan to get their hands on Elena.

"So," Elena began. We were in the car- her car; she insisted on riding with me instead of Damon and Alaric once it was decided we'd be taking two cars. "Morgan is...your sister?"

I looked over at her in the passenger seat before nodding. She was trying way too hard to be nonchalant. "Yeah. She was adopted though," I looked over to her again before returning my eyes to the road. "Doorstep baby."

"Seriously?" She scoffed and I nodded. "And your parents just took her in? Just like that?"

"Well, there were a few legal hurdles they had to go through, but yeah." I nodded again. "I was adopted too, but only because my mother couldn't get pregnant. They had been trying for a baby for a while, so when Morgan showed up they figured it was a sign. Don't get me wrong; they still tried for years after Morgan showed up, but they never treated us any different than they did our older brother...just like how I'm sure your parents never treated you any different."

I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see a slack jawed Elena staring at me in confusion. "How did you-"

"Elena, I believe in coincidences, I really do," I told her. "But you can't expect me not to put the dots together; my little sister was adopted, so I bring her to this strangely named town looking for her birth mother only to find a girl who's basically a Morgan double." I glanced at her again. "Plus, I heard Damon and Stefan talking yesterday about how Isobel had two kids." Elena said nothing, so I continued. "Why do you think I suddenly started cooperating?" I asked. "If you all had put the pieces together like I did, then you just found out that you had a sister and I don't know you, but you don't seem like the kind of girl who would just let her family get hurt."

* * *

 **MORGAN**

* * *

"Morgan..." A voice said from somewhere on my left. "...Morgan, you got to wake up..." I was so tired and in so much pain. I just wanted to close my eye and go to sleep so I could wake up and the pain would be gone, just like with headaches. "Morgan, open your eyes." The voice commanded.

"I just want to close them for a bit." I claimed, but opened them anyway. In front of me, suspended from the ceiling by his hands, was my kidnapped companion. He had told me earlier that his name was Stefan and then he called me Elena before I corrected him. That was before that...guy came down here and got us before parading us in front of some guy that Stefan said was his brother. Then they retied us both downstairs with another guy I didn't know. I couldn't remember it all clearly; maybe it was because I was forgetful or maybe it had something to do with the guy that bit my neck. Asshole.

"You have to keep your eyes open, Morgan." Stefan insisted, but I was busy trying to remember when I had told him my name. Maybe it was when he told me he was a vampire...who knows?

"My neck hurts." I complained.

"I know it does." He said. "But you have to keep yourself awake. We're gonna get out of here soon, I promise."

"I'm gonna die down here."

"No, you're not." Stefan denied forcefully. "Now, I want you to listen to me." His eyes were green...I didn't notice that before. If he was a vampire, why weren't his eyes red like Dracula? "Tell me your name."

"You know my name." I reminded him.

He didn't care. "Tell me your name." With a sigh, I did as he asked. "Now, tell me where you live."

"Uh..." I had to think. My head hurt. I wanted to go to sleep. "Atlanta. Twenty-seven seventeen, Richardson Avenue."

"Right," He nodded. Did Stefan know where I lived? "The one with the birdbath in the front yard, right?" That wasn't right.

I shook my head. "We have a tree in our front yard."

"What kind?"

"Uh...I don't know." I shrugged.

"That's fine." He insisted. "Do you have any in the backyard?"

I nodded. "It has a bench swing. My dad put it up before we were born. He wanted something for us to play with once we were older. He was going to build a tree house, but the contractor told him that he'd have to cut the tree branch and dad didn't want to." That made be laugh a bit. "He treated that tree like it was one of his children."

Stefan was still on his mission to keep me talking. "Who's we?" He asked. "Do you have siblings?"

I nodded again. "Yeah, my, uh...my sister. He name is Rachel. We have a brother too, but we don't talk about him."

"Why not?" He asked as I let my eyes close for a second. I wondered how much blood I could lose before I passed out and died. I sighed; I really should have paid more attention to the medical people on crime shows. "Morgan, don't close your eyes!" Stefan ordered. I opened them just enough to see him struggling in his ropes and I could see something wafting up into the air from where his hands were bound. _Was that smoke?_ He groaned. "Tell me about your brother. What was he like?"

Sighing, I sat my head back up and tried to keep my eyes open. Stefan was doing his best to keep me awake, I could at least do as he asked. "Rachel would kill me if she knew I told anyone, but considering we're about to die..." I sighed again. "His name was Clay. He was five years older than me and he was the most amazing guy you'd ever meet. I mean, he never pushed me away whenever his friends were around, he always played for me- bought me ice cream. He even used to join my tea parties when I was little." I smiled at the memory. "I never had to beg him; I'd just go into his room and he'd drop whatever he was doing to make me happy."

It was quiet. "...Where is he?" Stefan asked after a moment. "Did he come to Virginia with you and your sister?"

I shook my head. "No...he died when I was fourteen with my parents. It's just me and Rachel now." Stefan was quiet again and, for a moment, I thought he'd finally passed out. "Stefan?"

He shushed me and I looked to see that he was looking up. "Stay quiet; something's happening."

* * *

 **RACHEL**

* * *

"You ready?" Alaric asked from where he sat next to me. Taking a deep breath, I nodded. "Let's go."

Considering we were pretending to have been stranded after our car broke down, we couldn't just park Elena's car in front of the house. After disposing her in Damon's car, I had parked hers on the side of the road a bit away from the house. Damon was already hiding in the woods behind the house waiting to be let in.

After putting up my hood, Alaric and I rushed from the car and to the house as fast as we could before he quickly knocked on the door. Rubbing his hands, he didn't have to pretend to be warming himself up since the rain was ridiculously cold.

After a moment of waiting, the door opened and we came face to face with a man. He was around Alaric's height with dark hair, matching eyes and facial hair. He looked...not annoyed, but more unresponsive to our appearance.

"I told you someone was home." I said to Alaric, trying not to react to the way the man was staring at me.

"Can we use your phone?" Alaric asked. "My wife and I, our car broke down a few miles up the road and this is the first house we saw."

"Well, lucky you." His voice did not match his appearance. I was expecting something gruff.

I tried to smile again. "Very lucky; he wanted to go the other way."

"It's no trouble, is it?" Alaric continued, wanting to get into the house and I agreed with him. The faster we were in, the faster we could get Morgan and Stefan out.

The man stared at us for a few more seconds before stepping aside. "Not in the slightest."

"Great." Putting his hand on my back, Alaric led me into the house and the man closed the door behind us. When we entered, there was another man; white with thin brown hair and a face that wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't terrified, standing near the door. "We really appreciate this; it's rough out there."

"Billy," So the silent man had a name. "Show our visitor where the phone is and get me something."

"Sure thing." Billy walked down the hall and we followed, passing a room where there were multiple other men surrounding a pool table. There was loud, really bad, music playing, so I walked faster.

Billy lead us into the kitchen where there was an older woman cutting up vegetables. "Hey, Ms. Gibbons," The woman turned around and gave Billy a smile. I wondered if she knew that he and his friends had two people hostage downstairs. "These people want to use your phone; their car broke down."

"In this weather?" She tutted. "Go ahead, honey. It's right there," She said and pointed towards the wall mounted phone with the knife she was using. That's when I noticed the multiple deep and unhealed bite marks covering her on her arms and neck. I could immediately tell they were human. Who the hell were these people?

I looked over at Alaric, but he simply nudged me towards the phone. I tried not to react to how fast my heart was pounding as I made my way over. Picking the phone off the hook, I didn't know whose number to dial, so I panicked and dialed my own. I had no idea where it was  
Immediately, Alaric's pocket began to rang. I forgot that he had it; Damon had gone searching for Morgan last night after almost strangling me to death and decided to look for clues about where we were staying at my car. He had found my phone. I didn't know why he had given it to Alaric, though.

Alaric laughed a bit nervously. "Sweetie, I'm right here. Remember?" He asked as he pulled out my phone.

I gulped. I sucked at this. "Right." Alaric pressed a button on my phone and that's when everything went wrong.

Suddenly, seeing something that he didn't like, Billy grabbed at Alaric who let a sharpened stick slide out of his sleeve and shoved it into Billy's chest, covering his mouth before letting his drop to the ground.

"What the hell wa-" Alaric surged forward and covered my mouth, too.

"He saw the picture of you and Morgan on your phone." He whispered. I forgot that was my screensaver. "Don't yell." I pushed him away.

"You just stabbed that guy in the heart with a wooden stake like you were Buffy!" I whispered back with wide eyes. "What the hell is going on?! I want to know and I want to know now!" I realized that this wasn't the best time to be asking, but I officially needed answers. Alaric had just murdered someone in front of me.

"He was a vampire!" Alaric whisper yelled back and I stopped. "Just like Damon and just like Stefan! That's why Damon can't come into the house; he has to be invited. That's why we're here! I understand that you're scared and have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, but we don't have time for this." Moving past me, he turned on the faucet before doing the same to the food processor on the island that was fulled of chopped vegetables.

"What's happening?" Ms. Gibbons asked in confusion, calmly looking down at Billy's dead and gray body as Alaric led her over to the back door.

"I'm really sorry about this, ma'am." He said. "But I need you to invite my friend in." Opening the back door, I saw Damon just standing on the back porch like he had been waiting there the entire time. I was still silently freaking out at Alaric's explanation. Vampires were real? Vampires kidnapped my sister? Why would vampires kidnapped my sister? Vampires were real?

I was brought back to our current situation when I heard a sickening crack and saw Ms. Gibbons' body fall to the ground. I opened my mouth, intent on screaming, but Damon rushed over to me- inhumanly fast- and put one hand over my mouth and a finger up to his lips. "Shh..."

"Why did you kill her?!" Alaric demanded, rounding on Damon. "You were supposed to compelled her to let you in."

"It doesn't work that way." He insisted and I pushed his hand away from my mouth as I stared at Ms. Gibbon's body. _Now's not the time to freak out,_ I told myself. _Find Morgan and then you can figure out all this vampire crap out._

 _"_ She was human!" Alaric hissed, stalking towards Damon, but I finally broke away from where I stood and put myself between the two.

"Now is not the time for this." I reminded them. "We have to get Morgan and Stefan. That's why we're here, remember?" Neither one spoke. "Alaric, go get your bag." I ordered, but he didn't move. "Alaric, now." I hissed, gently pushing him towards the door. With one last glare at Damon, Alaric left and I closed the door.

Damon smirked. "You're kinda ballsy for a human."

"Well, I honestly wouldn't have done half the things I have if I had known that you were a vampire." I admitted. If it was possible, Damon seemed to get even more smug. Suddenly, his smirk dropped and his head turned. "What is-" He held up his finger.

"Someone's coming, hide." He ordered, pushing me towards the door near the phone. I entered it, barely having time to register it as a cupboard before Damon pushed himself inside with me. The cupboard was tiny- smaller than most, meaning that Damon and I were chest to back and I barely had any room to breathe- not that I wanted to. I was too busy straining my ears to listen out for footsteps. Damon must have heard something I didn't, because he suddenly rushed out of the cupboard, stake in hand and shoved it into the chest of the only person in the kitchen. "C'mon." He held out his hand and I immediately took it before he led me into the hallway and to the basement door.

Damon went down first, naturally, and I was right on his heels, but he stopped me and warned me to be quiet when we neared the bottom. I copied him when he pressed his back up against the wall and I held my breath, waiting to get caught when Damon shot out his hand, sending whatever was in it into the neck of the man who had wandered in front of the stairs. I was guessing he was a vampire.

"Are you insane?" I heard Damon ask and rushed down the rest of the steps to see that Elena had left the safety of the car and come to the house.

"You're kidding me, right?" I breathed. "What the hell-" But I stopped myself. _Not your sister, not your priority_. I reminded before turning around and walking to the door at the end of the hallway, hopefully it was the only door I'd have to go through. I tried pulling it open, but it barely budged so I had no choice, but to throw all my weight against it and that, thankfully, did the trick.

I was barely able to stop myself from falling to the floor before Elena rushed past me and to Stefan, who was shirtless and hanging from the ceiling. My eyes searched the dim basement for a moment before they landed on a dirty and bloody Morgan. Her head was lolled to the side and her eyes were closed.

"Morgan?!" I quickly rushed to her grabbed her face. Her eyes didn't open. "Morgan, baby, open your eyes." I begged. I saw her eyelids twitch and it felt like a brick had been lifted from off of my chest. After having helped Elena get Stefan down, Damon moved behind Morgan and pulled her ropes loose Elena untied the man next to her that I hadn't noticed before. I was, understandably, not worried about him. "She's still out." I told Damon and he didn't even hesitate before picking Morgan up and throwing her over his shoulder. She groaned a bit in protest, but I took that sound as a sign saying she wasn't completely out.

"Can you get Stefan to the car?" Damon asked as we left the room.

"Yeah." Elena panted, half dragging Stefan.

"Good, go."

"What about you two?" Elena asked, looking between me and Damon.

"Don't worry about us." I told her. "We'll be right behind you." That was a lie. I knew it was a lie.

Without giving her a chance to argue, Damon disappeared up the steps with Morgan and I quickly followed, not wanting to be away from her. All I wanted to do was grab her and drag her back to Damon's car, but there was no way I'd be able to carry all that dead weight.

"Stay here." Damon ordered when we got to the top of the stairs. He grunted as he let Morgan down and leaned her against the wall. I quickly grabbed her. "Don't come out until I tell you too.

"You don't have to tell me twice." I told him before he disappeared.

Over the next several moments, I heard crashing and furniture breaking, I heard yells and things- or was that people?- being thrown into walls. I found myself worrying for Damon, but only for Morgan's sake. I would drag her out of this house if I had too, but I wouldn't know what to do- where to go afterwards. I couldn't trust anything I thought I knew.

Thankfully, Damon reemerged with Alaric who helped me carry Morgan to the front door. Unfortunately, they didn't count on the ten different men who seemed to surround the house.

"They're vampires, aren't they?" I asked and Damon nodded.

"Yep." He sighed before looking to Alaric. "How many of those vervain darts d'you have left?"

"One." Damon shook his head as he and Alaric shuffled back towards the front door, forcing me to go with them.

"Not gonna be enough." Damon closed the door as Alaric helped me put Morgan on the couch. Ignoring all the bodies that littered the living room, I went up to her head wishing that there was something- anything I could do to make her more comfortable. That's when I realized how shallow her breathing was.

"You guys have a plan, right?" I asked looking over to them and they looked at me. "We're not gonna die here, are we?"

Damon pressed his mouth into a hard line. "Fifty-fifty chance." I gave in an incredulous look. "Seventy-thirty."

"That's not any better!" I exclaimed just as more banging sounded on the doors. I could hear the wood splintering. "Damon?"

"Yeah?"

"If we make it out of this..."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to put a stake through your heart myself."

Alaric let out a little chuckle. "I like her."

More banging sounding on the door and just as I was sure the door was about to break apart, I heard a commanding voice from the other side. "Stop! What's going on here?!" Damon and Alaric looked to each other in question just before the door opened and a woman stepped through; She was Asian, with maybe ten or so years on me with black hair and she wore a nice business suit. Behind her was a teenage girl, who looked enough like her to be her daughter. She looked around at all the bodies that lay on the floor before looking to Damon. "What did you do?!" Seeing that this was between her and Damon, Alaric came over to me and helped me get Morgan up.

"Me?" He asked as if she was wrong to accuse him. "You're merry little band of vampires spent the day torturing my brother and sucking Elena Gilbert dry." I tried to hide my look of confusion when the woman's eyes flicked to me and Alaric and then to Morgan. I started moving faster, urging Alaric to do the same and got her out of the house and onto the porch. I found myself stopping, however, when I saw all the other vampires standing out in the dark.

"Go." The woman said. "They won't touch you." Deciding it wasn't in my or Morgan's best interest to question her, Alaric and I carried Morgan down the steps and past every single vampire with Damon behind us.

* * *

"Are you sure that she'll be okay?" I asked Damon as I moved Morgan's hair out of her face.

After leaving those vampires behind, Damon had brought Alaric, Morgan and I back to his house- which I learned he called the boarding house- while Elena had drove Stefan. Alaric had gone and Elena was with Stefan. Damon was kind enough to let Morgan and I stay at his house for the night, but insisting it was only because he didn't 'want another Vicki Donovan' on his hands. Whatever that mean.

Damon nodded. "I gave her my blood. It'll help her heal and she'll be good as new by tomorrow morning." Looking away from my sister, I looked up to Damon as he took a drink of whatever alcohol he had in his glass.

"Thank you, Damon." I said sincerely. "Morgan is...she's my whole world. If you hadn't saved her..."

"Don't mention it." He insisted before downing the rest of his glass. Then, without another word, he left the room.

I sat with Morgan for a few more minutes, just watching her and listening to the sound of her breathing before I was joined by someone else. I turned my head when I heard a small knock at the door and saw Elena standing there, unsure of what to do."

"Elena," I stood up from Morgan's bed. "Come in." She stepped inside the room and towards the bed slowly.

"How is she?" She asked, looking at Morgan and I tried to give her a reassuring smile.

"Damon says she'll be okay." I told her. Looking back to my sister, I couldn't help but sigh. "All she wanted to do was find Isobel...I don't know what I'm gonna tell her- how I'm going to explain anything that's happened."

"You don't have to." Elena said suddenly and I looked at her in confusion. What was that supposed to mean. "A few months ago, my brothers girlfriend Vicki got turned into a vampire." She said walking forward before taking a seat on the bed. "She...hurt me and she could've killed my brother, but Stefan was able to stop her before it happened. The threat was gone, but now my brother knew about vampires which put him in so much danger."

"And what did you do about that?" I asked. "Send him away?"

"I took away his memories." She corrected and I gawked at her. How could she have possibly done that? As if reading my mind, Elena answered, "Vampires have this thing called compulsion; they look you in the eye, tell you what to do, and you do it. I asked Damon to take away Jeremy's memory of what happened to Vicki so that he wouldn't have to go through the rest of his life being afraid. His life's been better because of it." I shook my head.

"No," I said. "I couldn't do that- I can't do that, Elena. Morgan deserves to know the truth-"

"She deserves to be safe." Elena interrupted. "It wouldn't mean that you don't love her. Compelling her would mean that you did."

"I can't, Elena."

"If you ever want her to be safe again, you have to." She argued. I opened my mouth, intent on reminding her that Morgan could make her own choices, but I was interrupted by the groaning that came from the bed. Turning around, I sat down and grabbed Morgan's hand, trying to get her to wake up a bit more, but she freaked out.

Not even a second after I grabbed her hand, Morgan pulled it away and began screaming at the top of her lungs. She tried to scramble away, but I grabbed her before she could. "Let go of me!" She screamed, kicking as I pulled her to me. "Get off of me!"

"Morgan, calm down!" She continued to scream and jerk around, but I kept a firm grip on her. "Morgan, you're safe!"

"They're gonna kill me!" She cried and I could hear Elena calling for Stefan. "What happened to their faces?! They're gonna kill me!" At this point, she was barely making sense and my grip was starting to weaken. Normally, Morgan wasn't stronger than me, but she was hysterical. "Don't let them kill me!"

"What's going on?" I looked to the doorway to see that Stefan had appeared. I assumed Damon had gone or else he'd have heard the screaming too.

"She's freaking out!" I informed him, as if he couldn't see it for himself. Stepping into the room, Stefan came over to the bed and sat down before taking Morgan's face in his hands. She continued to cry, but I could already see her calming down.

"Morgan, everything's fine." Stefan told her and Morgan's body relaxed in my arms just before Elena pulled me away. I didn't even have the thought to fight against her. "You're safe."

"Rachel," Elena said softly, pulling my attention away. "I know you don't want to do this, but-"

"Do it." I interrupted and she seemed surprised that it hadn't taken more convincing, but she didn't know what I knew; she didn't know that Morgan rarely got frustrated or panicked. She didn't know that Morgan was one of the most level headed people she'd ever meet...

She didn't know that Morgan had only gotten this upset the day our parents died.

Stefan looked back at me and I nodded at him. "Please...just take it away. Don't let her remember what happened." Stefan stared at me for a moment longer, as if waiting for me to change my mind, but did what I asked when he realized it wouldn't happen.

"What do you want her to remember?" Elena asked and I let out a shaky breath.

"We came into town," I said. "But we didn't find Isobel. She met you and..." I swallowed. "And you two talked and now she's trying to decide if she wants to stay here or not."

"Are you sure?" I nodded.

"I can't take away all of her choices."

Stefan looked back to Morgan. "Morgan," He spoke softly. "You came here to Mystic Falls with your sister..." I left the room. I couldn't listen to him repeat the lies that I had told.

I went downstairs to the living room and grabbed a random bottle out of the liquor cabinet before dropping myself down on the couch. I didn't know how long I sat there staring into the fire before I heard someone come in and, by how hard they were walking, I was guessing it was Stefan.

"She's asleep." I heard his voice say only a second before he sat down next to me. "She'll be back to normal by tomorrow."

I scoffed. "None of this is normal." He made a sound of agreement and I looked down at the bottle in my hand before looking to him. "Do you think I did the right thing?" He looked at me. "Compelling Morgan?"

It took him a moment to answer. "I think...you did what you believed was right. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but, at the end of the day, you're the one responsible for Morgan. You only want what's best for her and, at the moment, that might mean her not knowing everything." I sighed. Stefan might've been right, but that didn't stop me from feeling guilty. "I can take away your memories, too." I looked at him. "If you want me to."

Immediately, I shook my head. "No." I denied. "If Morgan wakes up in the morning and decides that she wants to stay her with Elena- stay and look for Isobel, I have to protect her from what she doesn't know. The only way I can do that is if I remember every single thing that's happened."

Stefan sighed as he repositioned himself on the couch, turning to face me. "Well," He began. "If you're going to stay here in Mystic Falls, then you should probably know that all this vampire stuff doesn't end with us." He told me. "Isobel's connected too and, if you really want to protect your sister, then you have to be prepared- you have to know."

I nodded. "Tomorrow." I said and he raised an eyebrow. "If Morgan decides she wants to stay, then you can tell me everything...but not until tomorrow."


End file.
